Gates: Jobs saved Apple

At this point, it kind of goes without saying, but Bill Gates says it anyhow: Steve Jobs saved Apple.  More specifically, David Matthews of Columbia Executive Business school had this question for Bill Gates:

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QUESTION: If you could just comment and tell us what your thoughts are on the job Steve Jobs has done as the CEO of Apple? (Audience laughs as Gates smiles.)

GATES: Well, he’s done a fantastic job. Apple is in a bit of a different business where they make hardware and software together. But when Steve was coming back to Apple, which was actually through an acquisition of NeXT that he ran, Apple was in very tough shape. Steve Jobs Steve Jobs In fact, most likely it wasn’t going to survive. And he brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that’s made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things. And it’s great to have competitors like that. We write software for Apple, Microsoft does. They compete with Apple. But he, of all the leaders in the industry that I’ve worked with, he showed more inspiration and he saved the company.

Bill, keeping it real.